In the first Zombieland, a particularly virulent form of human-adapted mad cow disease sweeps across the United States, transforming most of the nation’s populace into ravenous zombies. The film follows a ragtag group of unlikely survivors—Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), and orphaned sisters Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin)—on a road trip in hopes of finding some place yet untouched by the disease, ending with a pitched battle against zombie hordes in an abandoned amusement park. Audiences (myself included) loved the mix of horror and dark screwball comedy. In fact, Zombieland beat out the Dawn of the Dead remake as the top-grossing zombie film to date.

While the original cast expressed enthusiasm for a sequel in the wake of Zombieland's success, their enthusiasm waned as the project languished for several years. Along the way, the four main cast members were each nominated for Academy Awards, and Emma Stone actually won the Best Actress Oscar for her role in La La Land (2016). So it's surprising and a bit gratifying that each of them retained sufficient fondness for their Zombieland experience to return for the sequel when it went into production. It's not like any of them really needed the work. "I think they are making this movie because they love these characters," Columbia Pictures President Stanford Panitch said in a June 2018 statement to The Hollywood Reporter.

Tallahassee's Twinkie totem decorates the grille.

YouTube/Sony Pictures

Battling zombies in what's left of DC.

YouTube/Sony Pictures

Wichita and Little Rock, armed and ready.

YouTube/Sony Pictures

The gang finds a once-prestigious new home.

YouTube/Sony Pictures

Tallahassee thinks he'd make a terrific president.

YouTube/Sony Pictures

A tender moment between Columbus and Wichita.

YouTube/Sony Pictures

Tallahassee tries to get his makeshift family into the holiday spirit

YouTube/Sony Pictures

Little Rock meets the man of her teenaged dreams.

YouTube/Sony Pictures

Does Berkeley (Avan Jogia) look like the kind of guy who'd be carrying around a bunch of weed?

YouTube/Sony Pictures

Columbus picks up stray survivor Madison (Zoey Deutch).

YouTube/Sony Pictures

Nevada (Rosario Dawson) shows she's just as tough as the rest of the gang.

YouTube/Sony Pictures

Tallahassee channels his inner Elvis.

YouTube/Sony Pictures

Doppelgängers! Luke Wilson meets Tallahassee in full-on Elvis mode.

YouTube/Sony Pictures

There's even a doppelgänger (Thomas Middleditch) for Columbus.

YouTube/Sony Pictures

When will they learn that zombies are drawn to noise and lights?

YouTube/Sony Pictures

Battle by monster truck.

YouTube/Sony Pictures

The official synopsis for Zombieland 2 is scant on details: "Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock move to the American heartland as they face off against evolved zombies, fellow survivors, and the growing pains of the snarky makeshift family." But in the trailer, we see our makeshift family setting up camp in a deserted White House, just in time for Christmas.

Complicating matters is the fact that Little Rock is now a teenager and feeling a bit restless and hormonal. When she meets a dreamy boy named Berkeley (Avan Jogia), she runs off with him. Columbus, Wichita, and Tallahassee take off in hot pursuit. Along the way, they meet tough-as-nails Nevada (Rosario Dawson) and two curious doppelgängers (Luke Wilson and Thomas Middleditch) for Tallahassee and Columbus. Of course, the zombies have evolved to be harder to kill, upping the ante for the final inevitable confrontation.

54 Reader Comments

I'm a little shocked they got them all to come back. That last scene at the end was the only one that seriously made me crack the fuck up, though if his doppelganger was Michael Cera that would've really been brilliant.

Sequels can usually be a bit hit or miss... okay, they're arguably usually more miss than hit. However, this one looks pretty decent so far. I think it'll mostly be important how well this cast works together after all these years, and also, how well the new additions mesh, and the trailer seemed pretty good on both so far.

When this article was originally posted, it had a different title. For quite some time I've been noticing that many articles are posted with one title, then a short time later, the title is changed. Why?

Is this someone's idea of a "marketing" or SEO gimmick? Or just some weird OCD?

All Ars articles have two headlines, and they have an A-B Testing style process to find which one gets more traction, then that one become the 'official' headline for the article.

I'm a little shocked they got them all to come back. That last scene at the end was the only one that seriously made me crack the fuck up, though if his doppelganger was Michael Cera that would've really been brilliant.

I really don't understand how they can come up with that idea and not throw wads of cash at Michael Cera to do it.

When this article was originally posted, it had a different title. For quite some time I've been noticing that many articles are posted with one title, then a short time later, the title is changed. Why?

Is this someone's idea of a "marketing" or SEO gimmick? Or just some weird OCD?

A/B testing is a thing. Easy to do on websites. Been discussed several times on Ars. I don't mind the changing headlines, I think that's fine. It used to be a problem that the story was perfectly clear and correct, but the headline was less accurate or even misleading. To the Ars' team's credit, I have not noticed that problem recently. Good on ya, Ars.

I wondered if there'd be a sequel to Zombie Land. Now I'm excited. I loved the first one. I know it's weird to say this, but I thought the first one had so much charm. It conveyed such a great sense of bond between the characters that I loved it by the end of the movie. The Bill Murray cameo was completely out of left field and funny as hell.

When this article was originally posted, it had a different title. For quite some time I've been noticing that many articles are posted with one title, then a short time later, the title is changed. Why?

The posters above me have cited some computery reason but the real reason is that you have in fact slipped between dimensions. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I love the kind of zombie movies that involve more humor than horror, and Zombieland is the best I've seen (beating out all the Scary Movie titles).

There are movies that happen to be funny and movies that try to be funny. The movies that fall into the former category tend to become classics and stand the test of time. The movies that fall into the latter category tend to be one-shot wonders and often become quite dated and old via the use of common humor for the time they were made.

You can actually see this throughout the careers of comedians that started acting in movies in the late 70's to early 80's. Their early movies tended to happen to be funny because they used humor to punch up what was happening or to lighten the mood of the movie and their later careers are often dominated by movies that recycle the same jokes everyone else was using at the time in an attempt to be funny.

When this article was originally posted, it had a different title. For quite some time I've been noticing that many articles are posted with one title, then a short time later, the title is changed. Why?

Is this someone's idea of a "marketing" or SEO gimmick? Or just some weird OCD?

All Ars articles have two headlines, and they have an A-B Testing style process to find which one gets more traction, then that one become the 'official' headline for the article.

Edit: I don't know about *all*, but definitely most.

One of the other reasons for this is that if you click on an article titled "Do words need to be spelled correctly in order for them to be comprehended?", it gets a click, and when they change it to "If you can raed tihs you msut be raelly smrat." and, yes, get another click. Then they switch all of them over to the one with the most clicks, and, the newly titled article gets yet a 3rd click from less than 1/2 of the audience. To me, this is shithead SEO games. If I read an article with a specific title, I sure as fucking hell should be able to discuss it, by title, with everyone else who has read the same article.

Hmm, I'm optimistic. Some of it looks contrived, as is often the case in sequels (especially in a parody that leans heavily into itself), but there should still be plenty of LOL moments. There were one or two in the trailer that cracked me up, like "Madison" flying through the car and hitting her head on the dash. I just worry a little about the re-used scenes in the beginning of the trailer...as if there wasn't enough content to cover what they were aiming for.

Some of the new cast chemistry looks good and fitting (Luke Wilson); others may (not) jive particularly well. But, I don't always like new people, so maybe it's just me.

Given the talent involved, I sure they'll work to minimize the rough parts in the script and make a solidly entertaining movie.

There have been a couple comedy sequels in that kind of time frame as of late. Anchorman got a sequel 9 years after the first (though it wasn't very good outside of a few decent jabs at CNN), and Super Troopers got a sequel 17 years after the first (which I honestly found hilarious but the critics slammed). I'd forgotten about Zombieland until this announcement, but odds are good I'll see this in theaters.